Goan lesson

At face value, the message of the Congress victory in Goa is clear. The trend set by the Assembly elections in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhy...

At face value, the message of the Congress victory in Goa is clear. The trend set by the Assembly elections in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh has been repeated. Smaller parties are tending to fall by the wayside.

Consensus and multiparty coalitions are a thing of the past. The elections of the near future shall be more like those of olden time straightforward tussles between two major parties. Ideology shall again be a prime mover, George Fernandes need not be the only politician speaking his mind any more, the electorate shall again be able to distinguish between competing parties and their manifestoes shall no longer look like they came off the same mimeograph machine. It is a trend that the electorate, who have never entirely understood what coalitions are all about and have viewed alliances as prime examples of political opportu-nism, are likely to welcome.

But, as always, the devil is in the details. The Congress has indeed come to power with a clear mandate, but the composition of the stateparty unit almost guarantees a sticky end. The party had committed itself to a ministry whose strength would be less than 15 per cent of the House. Yet, there were seven contenders for the chief minister8217;s seat alone. It is very likely that the Congress went for the Rajasthan model, where the chief of the state party unit automatically became the candidate, to prevent a war of ascension. Even so, the competition remains to be taken care of.

That means six ministerial berths booked already one more than the Congress had promised in a House of 40. And there are bound to be other people who played a crucial role in the elections and need to be rewarded.

Indian politics has always been about the pursuit of happiness. And from the days of Laloo Prasad Yadav8217;s jumbo cabinet, happiness has been equated with a ministerial berth, preferably in the core sector. It is difficult to see how the Goa Congress can secure the happiness of all while keeping to its poll promise of a sensibly-sized ministry. The results inGoa go against the popular perception that governments emerging with a clear mandate from a bipolar election are more likely to be stable than coalitions in which smaller parties have a stake. Forces within a party influence its chances as much as inter-party forces.

Luizinho Faleiro8217;s government is coming into office hamstrung by the same problem that was the bane of the Muslim empires in India unrelenting pressure upon the monarch to hand out subahs, mansabs and parganas to keep his janissaries happy and loyal. A bad memory of feudalism, it has no place in democratic politics, where players are not rewarded by fiefdoms alone. In the months ahead, the also-ran ministerial candidates are bound to express their unhappiness in the traditional manner, threatening to switch sides or split the party altogether. Even if they fail to achieve anything in that line, gathering discontent within the ruling party does not bode well for a government.